Air Asia Aggressive India Plan

BUDGET carrier AirAsia plans to aggressively grow its Indian affiliate’s fleet by adding 10 planes a year and will focus operations on the country’s under-utilised airports, the group’s chief executive Tony Fernandes said on Monday. AirAsia India, a joint venture between the Malaysia-based low-cost airline, Tata Group and investment firm Telestra Tradeplace, is expected to begin a domestic service from Chennai in the fourth quarter of 2013. It will focus on connecting under-utilised airports within India instead of offering services to the country’s main hubs Mumbai and New Delhi, Fernandes told a press conference in Mumbai. To do this, it has an “aggressive” plan to add 10 Airbus A320 aircraft a year to its fle

et, he added. “Game plan is very simple. We want to have the lowest fares, we want to improve connectivity within India. We think there are a lot of routes that are just not done,” he said. “If you look at air travel, it’s so concentrated on Delhi and Mumbaið.. there is a huge amount of airports that are under-utilised.” India’s low-cost aviation sector is developing slowly, with the three main budget carriers operating only about 130 planes across the country of over a billion people.